


Brave New World

by colazitron



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even though he's forgetting her, he still finds pieces of Vesper in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave New World

**Brave New World**

 

She insists on being competent like Vesper did.

He doesn't think about Vesper all that much anymore. He's forgotten exactly what she used to smell like, that favourite perfume of hers.

Her hand curls over his pectorals and brushes over his skin gently, almost lovingly. He can't help thinking it's a mockery of the emotion, surely, if they barely understand each other. He doesn't remember what Vesper's hands felt like on his skin in those blissful days when they were recovering in Switzerland, but he can't help thinking of her anyway. Missing her has dulled from the sharp pain it was in the beginning, but it still lurks in the recesses of his mind.  
When he doesn't even say goodbye to this one he knows for sure he won't miss her.

Q doesn't take any of his crap. He talks back like he's done it over and over before, sized him up and found buttons to push so easily he wonders if he could fit him in a suit just as easily. When he hands him the gun and radio transmitter he wears the same emotion on his face Vesper did when she handed him money to gamble away in Montenegro. James likes him. Don't let it be said he doesn't have a type.

She's easy to notice, her dress meant to catch the eyes of all around her. He's unsure of her significance yet, but he _is_ sure that she is somehow.

She does look beautiful in that dress, but it's easy to pass her by. His breath doesn't take a beat too long to come back, his mind doesn't falter over her. Nothing, he thinks, will ever again take his breath away like Vesper did, entering that poker room, playing him back so obviously it dizzied him. He couldn't pick out the exact shade of purple of her dress anymore and isn't sure which parts of it exactly sparkled, but he'll always remember the idea of it.

It's only up close that he recognises Vesper in the coal around her eyes, the black waves of her hair over her shoulders, the scooping neckline and not-quite-exposed back. One thing he can't forget is the fear in Vesper's face when she didn't want to die. He can't forget her face when she wanted to either, but it's the first one that's looking at him now. She's beautiful and so fragile and he does want to save her, he does. It doesn't excuse how easily he plays her, how he knows that her rescue is only an aside in his mission, that he'll most likely fail her.  
Maybe, he thinks, when he looks at her before she's led away and he's led to meet her mysterious employer, she knew that. Maybe this is what she wanted - death or safety. Safety in death. He still doesn't want to be the one to pull the trigger on her, but thinks she'll forgive him that moment of weakness. For a heartbeat he's back in a canale in Venice, but then he blinks and it's gone. It is a shame about that Scotch.

Q's smile welcomes him back like they're fond of each other now. James finds himself returning it without thought and sees Tanner pointedly not notice their interaction. Ask anyone and they'll tell you that James Bond is as heartless as they come. He's handsome and charming and he uses both qualities to manipulate the people around him into giving him exactly what he needs from them. It's not a lie, but it's not the whole truth either. James Bond's heart is too soft to withstand his day job and in order to protect it he builds walls around it. Lots and lots of walls like Rubik's cubes fighting back. He has to. Even if his battered, torn and haphazardly sewn back together heart is probably not much to protect, it's the only one he's got. It still grows fond of people too easily if they smile at him like they can see right through him and James hates and relishes in it in equal measures. He'll admit that he's glad Q is, well, Q and not out in the field, if only in the softest whisper in the darkest recesses of his mind.

He hasn't always hated _Skyfall_. When he was a boy he thinks he loved it. Loved hearing his mother talk about how she fell in love with his father and with this country, so different from her own. Loved running around the moors with the gamekeeper's dogs. Loved the creaky wooden floors and wooden wall panelling and wooden everything. Especially loved the secret passageway that led out into what he imagined to be a more exciting life, a different world, even he knew it was only a safe way to the chapel.  
He thought of bringing Vesper here, briefly. Of taking back what he was always supposed to have and breathing life back into the old walls. His own children running around the moors and travelling into more exciting worlds. Sitting by the fire with Vesper and whispering stories of how they fell in love with each other between kisses like he saw his parents do once or twice. But Vesper's bloated corpse rots away in the waters of Venice and he sets fire to _Skyfall_ without regrets. There is nothing left for him here.

He has no regrets about Vesper either, would let her betray him over and over if it means the only way to have had those precious few days, weeks with her. The only moments he regrets are the ones where he didn't pay enough attention to her, didn't see the fear in her for what it truly was, wasted moments he could have learned her, learned how to _save_ her.

He can't save M either and wonders if that's why he brought her here. If he brought his second mother to meet his first and die where she did along with the final thoughts of a future he'll never have with the only woman he ever truly loved.

Ms. Moneypenny has a new job, M gives him a new assignment and Q is understatedly enthusiastic about the car he's building James. Brave new world, indeed.

 

**The End**


End file.
